


lord knows you're only human

by thatsparrow



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers: Episode 73
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 23:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20090269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: "So, Captain," she nudges him with her foot, toeing him just below his ribs. "What's on your mind?"He takes his drink back from her, even though she's already emptied it to the last third. "You know you don't have to call me that anymore. We haven't been on a boat in months.""Just because we're not at sea doesn't mean it isn't true."





	lord knows you're only human

**Author's Note:**

> written immediately after the ep. 73 livestream because hey fjord holy shit
> 
> title from "on the devil's back" by katzenjammer

Unsurprising that Beau's the one who finds him. He's down in the tavern when she slides into the chair opposite, heels coming up to rest in his lap before she relieves him of the tankard in his hands.

"I was working on that, you know." He's spent enough time with Vandren's accent living in his throat that the sound of his own voice is almost unfamiliar. Like he's playacting still, even if the mask is different. "How'd you know I be here?"

Beau grins around the rim of the mug. "Maybe I didn't. Maybe I was just looking for a drink myself." 

A few tables over, a dwarven woman is arm-wrestling one of the few humans in Uthodurn; she'll have him beat and earned the coins between them in another moment more.

"So, Captain," Beau nudges him with her foot, toeing him just below his ribs. "What's on your mind?"

He takes his drink back from her, even though she's already emptied it to the last third. "You know you don't have to call me that anymore. We haven't been on a boat in months."

"Just because we're not at sea doesn't mean it isn't true."

He's grateful, then, that most of the tavern's lamps have burned low—saves him the embarrassment of Beau seeing his skin flush forest-green at the back of his neck. "It's—nothing, really."

She digs into his side with her toe again, insistent. "If it were nothing, you'd be upstairs sleeping with the rest of the boys. Speaking of—what do you all do, when there's only one bed to split? Jester's money is on spooning—like a big triple-spoon—but I think you'd all overheat pretty fast, so. Do you take turns on the mattress and then draw straws for the floor or what?"

Fjord laughs, easy. Gods bless Beau. "Sorry to disappoint, but it's not a situation that's come up all that often."

"But you _ would _ all share, right? Come on—Caduceus is, like, _ built _ for cuddling." She grins at him again, then goes quiet for a moment. "Seriously, though, I don't mean to—I don't know—pressure you or whatever, if you're not up to talking. Or if you really were just looking for a quiet drink and I fucked that up from the start, but—" she looks at him, pointed, "—you'd tell us if you weren't okay, right, Fjord? Maybe not me, exactly, but Cad or Jester at least. Especially after—well."

There's a two-inch scar above his navel from where he'd driven the falchion into his stomach; he'd let Caduceus heal the wound, but asked him to leave that reminder. He drains the rest of the tankard, but the ale's already gone warm.

"I've been wondering," he starts, slow, "since—letting go of the falchion, of Uk'otoa, of all the burden and gifts that came with it, whether I'd really done it for the right reasons. Hadn't it been selfish, in a way? Self-centered of me, that I was so concerned with breaking Uk'otoa's hold that I'd let myself become a liability to you all. What if I'd put you all in danger? What if one of you fell trying to save my gods-damned useless skin?" Fjord laughs, all the humor leeched out of it. "I was so afraid of what Uk'otoa might or might not do to me that I lost all sense of perspective.

"Do you know the fear that I felt yesterday, Beau? Watching that _ thing _ take Jester, and then you, and then Caduceus? I used to be able to—to summon _ demons _ and make the earth tremble under my feet." For a moment, he'd swear he could feel the phantom weight of the falchion in his hand. "What if those abilities had proved to be the difference between your life and death? What if Jester—what if _ she'd_—" he takes a breath, holds it in his lungs like Vandren had taught him until he's ready to let it out slow. "I've never been so afraid, Beau. Not even when we were up against the Laughing Hand, and I came far closer to dying then.

"But—even for all the guilt and the fear, when the moment came, I wasn't a liability after all. I wasn't—_useless_. No, perhaps I wasn't inflicting the same level of damage I'd grown used to—didn't manage to do much other than nearly dislocating both my fucking shoulders—but I helped. I did something right. Nobody died that day because of me."

"Better than that, you saved my life." There's a comfort in the way Beau is looking at him, a weight he feels like he could wrap around his shoulders, could keep himself warm with. "You're never going to be a liability, Fjord, because that's not who you are. No—you're the dumb motherfucker who squares up against a thirty-foot worm with a fucking _ whip _ because he doesn't have enough sense to save his own skin when his friends are in danger." She nudges him again with her foot. Whether intentionally or not, her toes press in against the vertical line of his scar. "We'll tell it to you as often as you need to hear it—you're not weak, Fjord. With or without Uk'otoa's powers."

Funny, that she was a stranger to him once and now she's nearly got him tearing up in some tavern halfway across the world. "Thank you, Beau. Truly. But for as much as I appreciate that, I think I still needed to prove it to myself, before I could really believe it."

"And do you, now?"

The glass is empty, but he'll raise a toast to her anyway. "You know, I think I do."


End file.
